Films Recently Watched

Pain & Gain is pretty great, probably the best film Michael Bay has ever done. Very fun, flashy and subversive.

Yeah, subversive is probably not the word I was looking for.

  On 10/6/2013 at 2:46 AM, zaphod said:

 

  On 10/6/2013 at 2:11 AM, Leon Sumbitches said:

Children of the Corn. Got-stoned-and-fell-asleep-halfway-through/10 feat. ugly ginger kid

 

were you watching the remake on the scyfy channel right now? not that i was

 

Haha nope, just the creaky 1980s one

Wild Strawberries 8/10 nicely shot if a little contrite drama about an old man reliving his memories. it's a bit long.

Summer with Monika 7/10 a young man meets a girl and falls in love, she turns out to be a complete psycho bitch.

Through a Glass Darkly 7.5/10 a family has a nice time until the daughter goes a bit mental and does something horrific.

I really like Bergman but he really does seem to have a thing for insane women and emotionally crippled men. maybe it's something to do with the climate over there.

someone's bumping off hotel guests at a couple's resort close to some aztec monuments. one guy thinks he can solve the case, until his dame disappears. he calls santo- the greatest hero of our time. a slow and moody film- unlike the other santo films that focus more on wrestling action.

Friday the 13th Part 3 - Made me question what the fuck I am actually doing with my life, but I still expect I'll watch Part 4 over the coming few days.

Lower City 8/10 a love triangle between two best friends and a hooker causes major dramas in this brazilian flick. it was well shot and very well acted.

Spank the Monkey 8/10 when a young man is left home to take care of his bedridden mum, weird things happen. great acting and unpredictable ending.

  On 10/7/2013 at 12:54 AM, MadameChaos said:

Spank the Monkey 8/10 when a young man is left home to take care of his bedridden mum, weird things happen. great acting and unpredictable ending.

edit: hmm i guess the trailer looks alright

  On 10/5/2013 at 4:18 AM, zaphod said:

gravity

 

well lumpy, i guess i'm a miserable cunt. i tried pretty hard to get into this, but i just wasn't feeling it at all. very pretty, effective use of 3d, awful score, bad dialogue, the barest sketch of character and motivation, and a lot of uninspired cliched writing. really expected more after seeing the ecstatic reviews this is getting, but it's a mediocre effects picture, nothing more. and mirezzi might have called it when he said children of men is like a video game, because the endless, unbroken takes in this actually felt like a video game cutscene, not a movie. didn't help when the film turned into a sort of mirror's edge in space, with first person camera views. it destroyed whatever tension the film could have had and constantly reminded me i was watching it. maybe cuaron is just too virtuosic for his own good, i don't know.

you basically covered all the points that ruined it for me too. it was a shit ton of fun, and it was filmed gorgeously (for the most part) but thats basically it.

it was a cool ride, just not a great film.

wtf was up with the soundtrack, it felt like it was caught in between generic cinematic action crap and something way more fitting. they should have explored the use of electronics more. the second they would come in, some strings would wash up and fuck up the whole mood they were seeming to run with.

also why the fuck was george clooney in space with them. he wasn't even a character, he just had a name that i can't even remember...

6-7/10

i can't even begin to describe how distracting the music was. it was just terrible. the music at the end with the woman warbling over the top of those pounding drums produced a major lol out of me. it was trying so hard. unfortunately, this is basically 127 hours in space. might as well throw sigur ros on the soundtrack and have a family pull sandra bullock out of the sea. also, the constant reminders of how beautiful life and the world is got on my last nerve. i get it, the movie is about seizing the day. so lame.

I guess I was just disappointed because I had hoped in the back of my mind that cuaron was the blessed one who could create a film where the intense and dominating effects are actually used as a means to an end-- that is, to tell a story and effect us on emotional levels. Swirling space debris... Fun to look at but leaves my mind fairly quickly. I could have just looked at a nice big pair of DDs at home and saved 12.50.

So if cuaron failed us... Who can do it?

i'm too cynical to answer that possibly rhetorical question. i don't think in the current climate of big budget film that anyone can provide the kind of balance or "means to an end" that you (and i think most people) are looking for. i think studios and advertisers have too much at stake and any film that's released is going to fall prey to those interests. but i know this doesn't make a lot of sense, because there's nothing about a blockbuster effects picture that says it has to also be mediocre and appeal to a lowest common denominator to make any money. i think cuaron is probably to blame here. there's a lot of cheesiness in children of men, gravity just takes it to the next level. but, it is really impressive, i can't say i regret watching it. just an ultimately hollow experience, more along the lines of cloverfield than 2001.

Dial M for Murder - 8/10 really smart film, i could not have guessed that it would keep me so interested with the entirety of the film taking place in a london flat

  On 10/7/2013 at 1:27 AM, tauboo said:

  On 10/7/2013 at 12:54 AM, MadameChaos said:

Spank the Monkey 8/10 when a young man is left home to take care of his bedridden mum, weird things happen. great acting and unpredictable ending.

woah really? i watched that when i was about 12 and remember finding it pretty awful and also gross

edit: hmm i guess the trailer looks alright

i've been meaning to watch this for so long and was not disappointed. the kid went on to play Michael Faraday in LOST (but not a lot else).

BTW it's actually called Spanking the Monkey, my bad.

  On 10/7/2013 at 3:48 AM, Marked x 0ne said:

Dial M for Murder - 8/10 really smart film, i could not have guessed that it would keep me so interested with the entirety of the film taking place in a london flat

I love that film. The opening seems so boring at first but then the plot starts to unfurl slowly but relentlessly like some kind of Rube Goldberg machine. It's got a bit of a proto-Columbo vibe going on as well.

Melancholia - 7/10

Gravity

Whilst watching I was pretty impressed. As others have said the music didnt always work, the rebirth imagery is a little obvious and held for long enough for the dumbest viewer to see and the back story about bullock "just driving" is horrible. BUT it looks incredible in IMAX 3D. Probably looks shit on a big tv.

Now onto my major problem with the film...

I read that the opening spacewalk scene was entirely CGI with their faces correctly lit and pasted on. This makes me appreciate that scene less. I imagined a big rig setup with clooney going around and a blue screen behind etc. Seemed like a lot of hard work but what a great shot! but if that scene is almost completely computer generated then....i don't know... i lose respect for it. I'm struggling to find a good reason why but I do. I know both require lots of work, but if you can CGI anything you can imagine then for me some of the magic of cinema is being lost. "we'll do that shot in the computer" seems like a cop-out. thoughts?

I sound a bit down on the film, but it really was fantastic, despite a few misteps

So, seeing Gravity took in a huge box office, I assume there'll be a sequel.

doubtful. cuaron said he doesn't want to do a space film again.

  On 10/7/2013 at 7:41 PM, Jimmy McMessageboard said:

doubtful. cuaron said he doesn't want to do a space film again.

Maybe James Cameron will do it & title it GRAVITYS.

flol

  On 10/7/2013 at 7:50 PM, olo said:

 

  On 10/7/2013 at 7:41 PM, Jimmy McMessageboard said:

 

doubtful. cuaron said he doesn't want to do a space film again.

Maybe James Cameron will do it & title it GRAVITYS.

But he only does films that start with a or t so it will have to be anti-gravity

Why was a medical doctor in space fixing something anyway?

lol @ gravitys

Filth - 6/10